<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Show me how it ends by thp_cara (TheHolosexualPan)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566187">Show me how it ends</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHolosexualPan/pseuds/thp_cara'>thp_cara (TheHolosexualPan)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hermitcraft RPF, The Weight Of Lies (Hermitcraft)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Battle, Established Relationship, Head Injury, M/M, Minor Violence, Post-Canon, This started out as a shitpost ngl, but then I went hehe what if lore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 01:56:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,826</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHolosexualPan/pseuds/thp_cara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An imminent threat, a desolate place to escape to and an unwinnable battle lead to an unexpected outcome.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grian/Mumbo Jumbo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>114</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Show me how it ends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/BastardBin/gifts">BastardBin</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20027974">The Weight of Lies</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/BastardBin/pseuds/BastardBin">BastardBin</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Lmao I just wrote this because BB said we were allowed to play with canon and then 'something something purple Grian' but then I went full on 'wait let me practice my nonexistent fight writing skills!'<br/>...I ended up somehow not even writing that much of a fight, because it's more like a back-and-forth and I'm a fucking coward, plus this is still more a shitpost with extra lore than anything else, really ^^;</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Grian has no idea what could have tipped them off, even now, as he is being led to the Shopping District Nether portal, his black feathers all sorts of ruffled and his wings unwilling to settle, despite Mumbo’s hand squeezing his in a comforting way, because no matter how hard Grian tries to think of something that could have been seen as an alert, especially given the privacy and security promised by this private world, his own thoughts simply run in circles, the questions of “why” and “how” remaining unanswered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sky is already black above him, the stars hidden behind the endless expanse of dark clouds that had been drifting all over the sky during the day, heralding what can only be a severe storms, the wind cold enough to have Grian trembling slightly, which prompts Mumbo to look at him with a worried look in his eyes. Several hermits are running through the Shopping District around them, as well, slipping in and out of shops, the angels flying through the air and wheezing past the taller structures that stick out with a sort of precise speed that makes Grian dizzy even as he simply observes them. Grian doesn’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>how</span>
  </em>
  <span> they managed to find him, or what exactly they know, and the lack of information makes the whole situation that much worse, makes Grian whip his head around, trying to catch a glimpse of huge white wings or of a whole face marked in purple etchings, the symbols glowing in the darkness of the area just as Mumbo’s are, as Grian’s would be, were his glamour still in use. A glamour would he useless right now, though, and Grian knows this, as much as the realisation brings with it a bout of helplessness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian looks at his own feet as Mumbo continues to bring him closer to the black frame encasing the swirling filament of pure magic and tries not to stumble, but his hands feel unbelievably cold and, at this point, Grian isn’t sure if that is a consequence of the chill in the air or if it is caused by the all too familiar fear taking hold of his emotions, almost making him shut down, his wings trembling on his back with how hard Grian tries to keep them closed. Subconsciously, Grian shuffles closer to Mumbo and Mumbo, impossibly sweet and caring as he always is, which, given the context, makes the terror weighing him down even heavier, the lead weight of it pulling at his heart and at his mind in a way that Grian had almost forgotten it could, looks at Grian with this </span>
  <em>
    <span>look</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Grian...”, Mumbo says and even if his voice is barely above a whisper, it still makes Grian flinch, makes him shudder with the sudden sound, so Mumbo pulls Grian closer by wrapping an arm over his shoulder, mindful of the wings that go almost numb on Grian’s back due to the way he is holding them so close to himself, “It’s going to be ok.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian gapes at Mumbo, the sheer ridiculousness of such a statement when </span>
  <em>
    <span>they</span>
  </em>
  <span> know of Grian, somehow, nearly too much to process, but Grian cannot deny the fact that he can breathe a little easier, now, even if he knows the words don’t necessarily mean much, don't ring true, not fully, that they are just Mumbo’s too optimistic values showing themselves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I still have to go?”, Grian asks, almost allowing a seed of hope to blossom in his chest, but at the way Mumbo’s face goes serious, his eyes hardening just a little bit, his mouth drawn into a thin line, and Grian knows the face isn’t directed at him, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but it still scares him, crushes it before it can even sprout.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And this is what it comes down to, Grian realises with a worrying lack of emotional reaction from his suddenly </span>
  <em>
    <span>too</span>
  </em>
  <span> quiet brain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something must have alerted the archangels, they are coming </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Grian has to </span>
  <em>
    <span>go</span>
  </em>
  <span>. There's nothing else they can do, lest Grian be willing to throw everything away. He isn't, despite how guilt tugs at his very soul, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>isn't</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gulping as they are faced with the looming purple of the portal, Grian cannot seem to find it in him to let go of Mumbo’s hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can’t protect you here”, Mumbo does whisper, this time, a weird mix of sorrow and something different, something more determined turnings his words sharper than Grian thinks he’s ever heard from Mumbo, “And I </span>
  <em>
    <span>won’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> let them hurt you. We won’t stand for it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian wants to dismiss their worries, to tell them that his glamour is much stronger now that he sleeps regularly, now that he no longer has to use it all the time for fear of being found it, now that Joe is teaching him how to control it better, but his heart hangs heavy with those mere thoughts forming inside his head because Grian knows how little his progress means in front of an </span>
  <em>
    <span>archangel. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He would be lying to himself and he knows it. Grian looks away from Mumbo’s suddenly intense gaze, looks at the portal before him, throws one last glance at the bustling activity of the Shopping District, and, for just a moment, warm affection replaces the cold feeling that had been slowly suffocating Grian ever since Xisuma had notified them, ever since he’d gathered all of them in one place, only to, with the most solemn tone Grian thinks he’s ever heard from him, announce the fact that they will fight for their home and they will fight for </span>
  <em>
    <span>Grian</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He is sure none of them would have alerted the archangels, because he knows better now, he knows the hermits and he knows how they are, how they stand up for each other when need be, their bond stronger than any Grian has ever seen or, even, </span>
  <em>
    <span>experienced</span>
  </em>
  <span> before joining them, but that surety only leaves the question of how they figured it out, even if, according to Xisuma, they had seemed suspiciously subtle about their reason for visiting and reviewing this particular world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian almost doesn’t notice it when he slips beneath the roiling sea of his own thoughts, their weight familiar enough that Grian can simply tune it out, but Mumbo does and Mumbo brings both of his hands to Grian’s face as he turns him around, gently avoiding having the backs of his hands scratched by the sharp tips of Grian’s curled horns even as he leans forward, their noses brushing together and their breaths mingling with Mumbo’s next words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will be ok, love, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I promise</span>
  </em>
  <span>”, Mumbo assures him in a tone soft enough to make Grian shake even harder as he is held right there, before the portal, the sound of it almost deafening enough to drown out Mumbo’s next statement, “Xisuma won’t let them access the Nether from the overworld and you </span>
  <em>
    <span>will</span>
  </em>
  <span> be safe there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian feels the way his feathers puff out, the way the stick out almost painful from the usually smooth black surface they create over his wings, and throws a worried look at the quivering shape of them where they flutter in his peripheral vision, but before he can try to bring them back to a seemingly calmer position, Mumbo’s hands moves forward, gentle fingers tracing each feather that bumps against his hand as he traces the edge of an all-too familiar limb. It reminds Grian so much of the way Mumbo grooms his wings that he cannot help but close his eyes, letting the world around him fade away, just a little bit, just </span>
  <em>
    <span>enough</span>
  </em>
  <span> for him to sigh at the soft caress and allow his wings to relax a little. The hand leaves all too soon and Grian, slowly, opens his eyes, squinting at how just being this close to the portal is turning his vision hazy with purple magic. Judging by the tight feeling in his stomach, Grian can already tell that the magic will soon grow strong enough to take him away, Mumbo sitting further away from it, in front of Grian. Mumbo’s face has this almost mournful look in his eyes, but it’s not quite that. Grian hesitates before swallowing down against the ever growing fear and reaching out to cup a pale cheek between shaky fingers. Mumbo turns his head into Grian’s touch and, though Grian would like to claim that this isn’t affecting him, that he is thankful for Mumbo being so adamant in protecting him, that he has hope in what will come next, Grian doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he can feel the way his heart shatters a little. </span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Mumbo doesn’t look like he has lost something, </span>
  <em>
    <span>doesn’t look quite mournful</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he looks like he is about to let go of what is dear to him and Grian closes his eyes against the sting in them. Two hands frame his face again and pull him forward, Mumbo’s palms cradling him as he usually does, by supporting his horns and tangling his fingers in dark blonde hair. The touch of lips against his forehead makes Grian melt, but it is the sadness that speaks between them without any words needed that makes Grian pull himself back, as the magic of the portal grows stronger, the fuzzy feeling of being teleported starting at his fingertips and moving on, stretching out over his body more and more, until he cannot feel Mumbo anymore, until the sensation of falling makes him gasp. He hears something, echoey though it may be, the words spoken as though they were the last, and Grian can’t do anything to respond, can’t move as the portal magics him away, </span>
  <em>
    <span>but, damn it, does Grian try anyway.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever happens, Grian, just know...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Grian has to concentrate hard enough that his head begins aching, dizziness and magic not making for a good duo in the way they affect him, in order to catch Mumbo’s next words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Know that I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even through the numbness that comes with passing through a portal, Grian can feel the pain that passes through his heart, through all of the memories and feelings he’s spent so long accepting. He almost wants to jump back through the portal, to risk it all for the people he loves, for </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mumbo</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but it’s too late.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment Grian’s feet touch solid ground, the moment he can no longer feel the grasp of the portal's influence around him, the moment he can move again, he collapses to his knees upon the floor of the Nether hub. There may be tears streaming down his face, but Grian can barely feel them amongst the torrent that is of his own mind’s making. He wants to curl in on himself, wants to sit there and cry until he stops feeling, wants to let it all out until he cannot give any more, but the sound of the portal shattering behind him startles him. Grian chokes on a sob before slapping a hand over his mouth. </span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <em>
    <span>They’re here</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian slowly gets up, using one of the hub’s walls as support, his legs almost too shaky to carry his full weight, his wings dragging on the floor behind him with how numb they still are after passing through the portal, and tries to take in a breath. The hot air doesn’t fill his lungs they way it should, but Grian is afraid that he’ll work himself up into a panic if he breathes as hard as his lungs dictate. Xisuma had called it a panic attack and had said that many things could cause it, but that the hyperventilation caused by an attack could easily become </span>
  <em>
    <span>dangerous</span>
  </em>
  <span> . The realisation brings forth a sort of fear that Grian had almost forgotten the weight off.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>They’re here and he can’t do anything about it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Distracting himself by walking through the Nether hub helps, at first. He looks at all of the odd nooks and crannies that had been decorated in a way that Grian finds endearing, despite not knowing the context with which some of them had been created, but seeing all of the personal touches of the other hermits quickly turns bittersweet because it makes Grian think about them, about what they might be facing with an </span>
  <em>
    <span>archangel</span>
  </em>
  <span> on the server, whether or not they are being interrogated, which Grian hopes is the case, even if he wants to dismiss the more peaceful option because he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>seen</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>lived through</span>
  </em>
  <span> what the an archangel’s actions might lead to, but Grian hopes nonetheless, or whether all of those preparations Grian had gotten a glimpse of just before leaving are being put to good use. He can just about imagine a reenactment of the Civil War, but the mere idea that, this time, everyone would be geared up in full suits of softly glowing, enchanted armour sets of diamond and that they wouldn’t hold back, wouldn’t allow their own defenses to fall, that the ghast canons would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>targeted</span>
  </em>
  <span> and hit expertly at their targets, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>magic</span>
  </em>
  <span> would play a role, this time around, makes Grian stumble as a wave of nausea hits him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He walks on, however, keeping his eyes glued to the floor, shivering despite the hot temperature of the Nether, his wings twitching at every sound, at every distant cry of a ghast, at every loud rumbling of netherrack breaking off of the ceiling and crashing down into the lava ocean, at his </span>
  <em>
    <span>own </span>
  </em>
  <span>footsteps, which echo eerily in the empty hub. The last time he’d been here had been with Cleo and, despite shaking his head and digging his nails into sweater-clad arms, Grian can’t help but wonder about her health, about how an archangel’s magic could and would, eventually, overwrite Joe’s own fine work of his own powers. Grian stops in his tracks. The thought that the hermits might be suffering right now, while he is just strolling around their common hub, kills Grian a little, but not knowing hammers the nail into his coffin of doubt and fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian wants to keep walking, wants to keep hoping, but the realisation that he is completely disconnected from his </span>
  <em>
    <span>family</span>
  </em>
  <span> makes everything around him stop. It dims the glow of the hallway he is in, it mutes the already faint sounds into a buzzing silence and it raises goosebumps on Grian’s skin. The what if’s and the nerve-numbing terror that not knowing instills in him makes the loneliness and the worry inside Grian catch and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hold</span>
  </em>
  <span> onto his heart. It feels like he will never be able to move again, like his own mind has turned against him, but a small thought filters through the dark waves that knock him down, over and over again, and Grian clings to it as though it were the last thing he had left to lose.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>It is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian thinks and keeps thinking, repeating the words to himself, murmuring them under his breath, blinking slowly as something other than fear finally fits itself through everything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Xisuma won’t let them access the Nether from the overworld”</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mumbo had said and Grian feels the way his wings perk up, still slightly weakened by his own emotional turmoil, but something new keeps them steady behind him as Grian eyes one of the exits into the Nether Wilds, the red of the netherrack highlighted by the glow the lava beneath it throws onto its rocky formations, golden vines having grown over the little exit in places, their warmer hue almost inviting, despite Grian already knowing everything the Wilds have to offer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one can access their world’s Nether, or at least, that is what Grian has been led to believe, and he knows neither Mumbo nor Xisuma would word their plans in a way that would leave Grian doubting their integrity. At most, Xisuma would be a bit more subtle with the specifics and Mumbo would get lost in details, but he knows that, given the way Mumbo had looked when he’d let him go, there’s nothing to interpret in his statement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that little sentence leaves Grian with an idea, one shaped by desperation and something Grian thinks might be determination. They feel too big for his body, these feelings, but Grian welcomes them just as he welcomes the thought that, while the Nether is unreachable from the overworld, the opposite might not be entirely true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All Grian would need, and despite how simple it sounds, he goes over these two items in his head almost frantically as he approaches the ledge of the opening, not looking at anything in particular, despite dodging some of the vines that hang over the opening in an expert way, not even brushing against them and floating down gently, his wings spread around him. would be obsidian and a flint and steel. Grian knows how to make portals, or at least, ones that link back to already existing frames in the overworld, and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span> where to find what he needs, but the way fear returns to him just as quickly, making him hesitate in taking another step forwards, the netherrack somehow both soft and hard under his feet at the same time. However, the image of any of the hermits being hurt </span>
  <em>
    <span>because of him</span>
  </em>
  <span> has Grian moving again in no time, a hard set to his eyebrows, his mouth drawn in a thin line, and he leaps over netherrack formations hurried.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian has to go to a fortress and he has to do so </span>
  <em>
    <span>alone</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought is terrifying, but Grian has nothing to lose. He doesn’t know what would happen if he has to respawn, but at this point, he is, for once, prepared to risk it. It’s an odd sensation, the willingness to do something not due to fear, but in </span>
  <em>
    <span>spite</span>
  </em>
  <span> of it. It’s not something Grian has ever felt before, at least, not at this scale, and he can only hope it will push him </span>
  <em>
    <span>far enough</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His newfound courage lasts Grian for about five steps into the first fortress he stumbles upon, though he does manage to climb up the very precarious netherrack path that leads up to one of the open corridors of the building without as much panic this time around, but it doesn’t take more than having to jump over a dried splatter of unknown origins that stands almost black against the already dark netherbrick of the floor and something that registers in Grian’s overly alert brain as the distant clatter of old bones for all of his previous fears to return full-force, making Grian almost go back to the netherrack cliffs for a second, before he thinks better of it.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>He is here for a reason.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly, Grian manages to somewhat pull himself together, grabbing his pack and searching for a weapon, but when he can only pull out a half broken iron shovel, Grian grimaces. Xisuma probably would have expected Grian to stay in the Nether hub, had probably even prepared some provisions, because Xisuma always thinks ahead, but he probably didn’t think to tell Grian to pack a weapon when he sent False flying to Mumbo’s garden-bedroom and Grian had been so shaken upon finding out about everything that he had only thrown his pack on out of instinct, not bothering to think about taking any necessary tools or weapons with him. Grian truly does hope that his endeavour in the fortress will truly remain as short as Grian estimates inside his head, because if he gets himself in any sort of confrontation, he has </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> to fight with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian takes a deep breath and, before continuing, takes another one, squaring his shoulders as best as he can and pulling his wings against his back in a relaxed position, one that, at a moment’s notice, would allow them to flare open and aid Grian escape the things that he already knows will go wrong. Grian traverses the first corridor, one hand tracing the sturdy looking banister with cold fingertips, the patterns that he is sure must have been, painstakingly, hand-carved into each block, each </span>
  <em>
    <span>brick</span>
  </em>
  <span>, no longer visible, at least not in the faded, reddish light of the nether that the glowstone higher-up on the ceiling can’t help brighten, but still all too defined beneath his fingers. He remembers a younger version of himself finding pieces of these half-wall banisters and marvelling over the intricate patterns that they held, subtle enough to not make the whole structure too noisy, but finely detailed if one looked close enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are no ghasts flying overhead, for now, so Grian allows his attention to turn fully to all of the corridors  built seemingly randomly over the sea of lava, all of them leading in and out of the main body of the fortress, the large pillars holding them up weaving together beneath the suspended platforms, even if Grian can’t see them when he is on top of them. Grian stares at the many windows of the fortress, short and wide as they are, always spanning nearly the whole horizontal length of the walls, with bars imitating the growth of the vines all around the Nether subtly covering them, concealing the darkness that hides behind and that seems to almost </span>
  <em>
    <span>stare</span>
  </em>
  <span> out at Grian and, what with him not really being able to see what hides behind the fortress’ walls, something hidden in the shadows </span>
  <em>
    <span>might just be</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The thought has chills crawling up Grian’s spine and his wings twitching against his back, but Grian keeps walking after a shaky moment of silent panic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is not sure if getting into the actual fortress as quickly as possible is a good thing, because, though he will no longer be in the open, Grian knows what lurks inside its walls and his hand flies to his side, where the lack of a pain long forgotten almost sizzles just beneath his skin, a memory of a skeletal hand flashing before his eyes as Grian breathes out, if only to calm himself down. He crosses the threshold and, suddenly, he is inside the fortress and it is both better and worse than the last time he’d been to a place like this, the style of the building similar enough to bring up the worry Grian had felt watching Cleo explore with dangerous levels of excitement giving her step a bounce in his mind, but he is alone now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is not out of a sense of being practical that Grian basically runs around the fortress, his feet as silent as Grian can get them to be and his wings folded and held slightly higher up so he doesn’t accidentally step on his own feathers, but rather, it is because Grian does not want to be here any longer than he must. While his hearing is mostly focused on any sounds of the wither skeletons, Grian is looking around the long, winding hallways, ignoring the simple, arched ceilings and the pattern of the paved floor in exchange for trying to spot any glimpse of old wood which, hopefully, belongs to a chest or another type of storage unit. There’s not a lot of them laying around, and the ones Grian </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> find are empty, either already raided the first time the fortress was abandoned or searched through by the other hermits. Grian keeps looking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thankfully, he manages to avoid any of the withered guards protecting the fortress, although, he does have a close call when one of them spots to, or at least, seems to spot Grian through the fenced-up windows, but either they don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually</span>
  </em>
  <span> see him, or Grian is far away enough that, by the time the skeleton gets to moving towards Grian, he is already gone, but all in all, this second trip to a fortress already seems a bit less eventful than his and Cleo’s, which Grian can see as nothing except a blessing, were it not for the fact that it reminds him of Cleo once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian shakes his head and moves forward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He does end up finding some obsidian thrown in a lonely chest that has a charred tapestry half concealing it from the world and burned-in marks on its lid, but it is only once he reaches a part of the fortress where the building style shifts, slightly. The ceilings go a bit higher and their arches aren't as sharp anymore, with columns that don't necessarily offer any sort of support, but rather, are there for aesthetic reasons, sculpted out of netherrack with yellow cracks of gold glistening in the low light decorating it's surface, words in demon spech describing something that Grian assumes to be the imagery also covering all of the columns. It's too dark for Grian to actually make out any details of the figures carefully sculpted into the red and gold stone, but he is almost sure he spots the shape of wings in some of the images.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian rummages through the chest, picking up the obsidian and praying that the next chest will hold the last thing he needs before he can go home: flint and steel. Grian is almost confident that even a small nugget of iron would be enough, that he could just search for some flint amongst the gravel beaches, surrounded by soul sand though he would be, but for now, Grian moves further along, watching his step, the current lack of anything urgent happening, his senses aiding him in avoiding danger being a great help to Grian, almost making him comfortable to search for what he needs. Almost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Given the life he’s had before joining the hermits, the life he’s had for quite some time even </span>
  <em>
    <span>afterwards</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Grian knows all too well that silence isn’t a good thing, that if a place that should, by all means, have skeleton guards wandering about is quiet, it means that he is being watched, because Grian remembers how demons would sneak up on one another, how they’d make themselves practically invisible against the red background of the Nether and how they’d wait for the perfect opportunity to jump out and attack whoever it is they would have been following, and Grian </span>
  <em>
    <span>has</span>
  </em>
  <span> been the target of such tactics, so it is no wonder that he feels the false sense of security slip into something more alert, even if he tries not to show it, keeping his pose relaxed, walking along as he normally would, as if he didn’t know any better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is glad for having learned to be stealthy early on, because even if he has better hearing as a netherborn demon, sharper sense in general, Grian still knows that any sort of sound of his own feet against the floor or of his wings accidentally fluttering against the walls of the long hallways would be enough to distract him, enough to leave him open and vulnerable. As it stands, he is still too worried about breathing too loudly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t find another chest for quite a while and, with each second spent in this place, Grian feels as though his mind is falling deeper and deeper into the doubts and fears that he tries so hard to keep away, but fails, because they make him </span>
  <em>
    <span>almost</span>
  </em>
  <span> hear things that aren’t there and see things that his own imagination comes up with. With a shake of his head, Grian focuses his attention on the chest in front of him, grey, almost bluish wood standing out against the dark red bricks and the black and brown that might have been gold once banners all around it. Oddly enough, the chest is placed in a doorway that opens up to a particularly dark room, the atmosphere of which makes Grian freeze in his tracks. It is built differently, the entrance to this room, but Grian stares at the dark frame of it, at the thin silk which stands ripped in places pulled to the side, no doubt an aesthetic sort of border between the rest of the fortress and what Grian comes to recognise as a </span>
  <em>
    <span>throne room</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Turn back</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Grian holds his breath and keeps his eyes fixed on the fixtures on either side of the doorways, which display monstrous, winged creatures, which make Grian think that these distorted beings are the fortress demons’ way of mocking angels, but he knows better. Such mockery would not be allowed, not in </span>
  <em>
    <span>civilised</span>
  </em>
  <span> places, not in </span>
  <em>
    <span>fortresses</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Even so, it makes Grian’s stomach drop. He doesn’t want to approach the chest and, in his mind, there’s a battle over whether he should just go back, take a turn differently and keep looking for a piece of iron or an actual flint and steel, or whether he should risk it. </span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <em>
    <span>Turn back, turn back, </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>turn back</em>
  </b>
  <span>, his own thoughts yell at him, but Grian tries to ignore them and think about the whole situation logically, but his heart is racing in his chest and his whole body feels as immovable as the stone fixtures, as devoid of life as the whole fortress he finds himself in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, Grian doesn’t get the chance to make his choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything is silent around him, but the darkness of the throne room seems to almost be buzzing with </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the shadows shifting in a way that remind Grian of the way storm clouds move across the darkening sky before rain has a chance to fall, the movement imperceptible, but clearly there, if one looks close enough, and Grian </span>
  <em>
    <span>doesn’t like it</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Despite all of his earlier focus on his surroundings, his own warning to himself about needing to be cautious, for one single moment, Grian lets himself be distracted by just how </span>
  <em>
    <span>creepy</span>
  </em>
  <span> the room seems, even if he’s not even in there, and that is when it reveals itself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian hears it before he sees it, the clanking of its feet against the brick flooring still muffled, but Grian barely has time to process it and, as he finally realises what he’s facing, </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s too late</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It’s already seen him. It doesn’t move as quickly as any other wither guards that he’s encountered before, whether on this trip or the last one, almost as though it were biding its time, almost seeming smug with the way shadows fall back around it to reveal a decaying, blackened skeleton of a withered prince, its gigantic horns splitting off in three pairs, each horn framing its skull and making its piercing, glowing red eyes and missing broken jaw stand out. It has a chestplate that looks as though the slightest breeze would turn it to dust, but that, somehow, still hangs over skeletal shoulders securely. There’s a golden mace in its hand, kept low between the bones of its fingers in a loose grip and Grian feels himself gasp as the prince keeps walking closer, knowingly in the slow way it does so, and Grian cannot seem to move.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tries to clench his fists against his sides, truies to unfurl his wings behind him, tries to </span>
  <em>
    <span>blink</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and he can’t do it. He can only stand there and watch as it walks closer and closer to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then it raises its mace and Grian all but jumps back, his wings suddenly open, and his eyes narrowed in panicked concentration. It doesn’t hurry the pace at which it is walking, but it does tilt its head slightly to the side, almost questioningly. It make Grian shiver, but he doesn’t stay there to find out what the prince is thinking about, no, he takes off down the hallways as best as he can, his wings aiding Grian as he runs back towards where he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hopes</span>
  </em>
  <span> the exit to the fortress would be, but he is afraid that, in the narrower portions of the halls, their longest feather would just scrape against the walls, and so Grian folds them back up before looking out one of the window strips. Grian doesn’t get a good glimpse at the Nether outside of the fortress, but he does see a small soul sand island isolated in the lava ocean and, subconsciously, even, he sees it as some sort of escape route.</span>
  <em>
    <span> He just needs an exit first.</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span><br/>
</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span>Grian</span>
  </em>
  <span> keeps running, because the clanking of feet behind him gets louder and louder, but even as he imagines what would happen if the prince were to catch up to him, if Grian where to stop for even a moment, which his aching lungs warn him might just happen soon, if he doesn’t think of something, and his side aches with a dull phantom pain that Grian ignores, Grian shudders. He chances one look behind him and nearly shrieks at how much closer the prince seems, its glowing eyes almost looking angry in the semi-darkness enveloping the halls, but Grian just turns his head back to looking at where he is going because, and he almost feels himself collapse with the nearly painful amount of relief that courses through him, there, just in front of him, a few hundred feet away, he can see the way the fortress opens up into the winding, open corridors from before. Grian doesn't know if the sting in his eyes is caused by exertion or by the overwhelming fear that he cannot seem to push back against, but he doesn’t let himself wonder for more than a second about it, he just pushes his burning muscles forward and, the moment he is no longer constricted by the walls surrounding him in an oppressive, nearly claustrophobic way, he opens his wings and, with a powerful beat against the hot air of the Nether, Grian takes off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even as he flies away, almost clumsy in both trajectory and technique, what with the panic making his limbs turn too soft to allow him to make any difficult maneuvers, he can hear the withered prince, or rather, Grian hears the sound of its mace making contact with the banister it is stood on, red eyes following Grian with a sort of hate that makes Grian quickly turn his gaze back to the Nether in front of him, towards the soul sand isle that he’d eyed up before he’d even gotten out of the fortress and, with a shaky sort of twirl, he manages to land on it, even if the soles of his shoes are a bit too close to lava to be safe, but Grian takes a step back and, for what feels like the first time since setting foot in that fortress, he breathes in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The air of the Nether is always so hot and dry and it kind of burns if you stand too close to the lava, as Grian currently is, but he just wants to…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lowers himself to the soul sand and, after a second of getting his nerves under control, after his adrenaline has somewhat faded, Grian begins hearing them. The whispers. In the aftermath of being chased away by a withered prince for the second time in his life, they almost sound… Soothing. They are sad, some of the words truly the last ones in someone’s life, but they feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span>, in the weirdest way, more alive than the withered prince, at least. He looks up and, upon not spotting any ghasts, Grian closes his eyes. The way this whole day mirrors itself with another one just like it, and yet remains different enough to prod at an entirely different sort of fear, makes him think. Grian, for a short while, lets his mind drift, lets himself think about the other hermits, about Mumbo, about </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span> that’s changed since then and everything that is just about to change, once more. He feels like he is sitting on the edge of something bigger than himself, because he knows his friends won’t abandon him, not if they can help it, but he still feels that quiet, but omnipresent sort of darkness nudge at his own emotions and certainties. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Will</span>
  </em>
  <span> the hermits survive? Grian knows where treason would lead them, and hiding a demon in their midsts would more than qualify as that, but if he could tell the archangel evaluating the situation that they hadn’t known… It wouldn’t be a lie, not entirely. He’d spent more time concealing himself, more time as a fake angel than as Grian, than a demon who’d managed to steal a pair of wings from another hermit.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What’s one more lie about his identity?</span>
  </em>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Grian is so caught up in his thoughts that he almost misses it, the wet sound of something moving </span>
  <em>
    <span>through</span>
  </em>
  <span> the lava, but Grian </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> hear it. It’s faint and distant, even harder to focus on due to the bubbling of the ocean all around him, but as soon as Grian starts focusing on it, it becomes clearer and clearer, louder, even. It’s coming closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian jumps back up to his feet, the heat of the lava enough to make him dizzy, but he blinks the feeling away in favour of looking at the glowing mass the little isle is floating over. He tunes out the whispers of the dead, with no small amount of effort, and soon enough, he spots it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A piece of gold sticking out of the red-orange ocean. The spiked end of a golden mace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian doesn’t wait and opens his wings to try and take off, but something holds him back. His eyes widen as he looks down at the soul sand and tries again, with all the force he can muster, to flap his wings hard enough to take off, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>it won’t work</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It’s like the soul sand is holding him back, keeping him here, where he will meet his death, and Grian gasps as the sand shifts into something akin to </span>
  <em>
    <span>faces</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He turns his attention back on the ever approaching figure of the prince and, to Grian’s horror, he can now see its head fully, molten rock dripping down it but not affecting its already charred bones, only slowing it down and Grian tries to leave again, looks through his inventory for any blocks to put some distance between himself and the soul sand, but nothing comes up. Grian takes a step back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The prince is now close enough that, with a few more steps, it will have reached Grian, and he cannot do anything to escape it, to fight it. The mace almost glows with the heat. It is probably enchanted to not melt again, until the magic of it is broken, but it still looks so dangerously hot, the spikes already a valid concern, given their sharpness, but its boiling hot surface makes Grian’s mind roil away in fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another step back and Grian has to stop, because the heels of his shoes are on the edge of the soul sand and the black wings spread behind him seem close to catching on fire, temperature-wise, from being this close to lava, so Grian stops where he is. The skeleton emerges from the lava and rests one heavy foot onto the soul sand. Its eyes seem to darken and, with the way his skeletal grip loosens around the golden, leather-bound hilt of the mace, Grian almost hopes it will drop it. It is when it uses the foot he already has on the small island to raise itself on top of it fully, and when he has both feet firmly planted into the shifting ground, when it tries to make another move towards Grian, </span>
  <em>
    <span>it happens</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The explosion sends Grian </span>
  <em>
    <span>flying</span>
  </em>
  <span> back, bits of debris and droplets of boiling hot lava launched with him. Grian instinctively closes his eyes and uses his wings to stop his momentum as best as he can. When he looks upon the scene with a growing sense of confusion and dread, Grian has to wait before the reddish mist has cleared away because, as it seems at first, the whole isle is covered with it, the particles of broken relief flying around it for a few seconds before falling down.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Then something seems to light up in the mist and Grian isn’t even sure how to describe the shape of it, the figure too far away and contorted in an off shape. And yet Grian doesn’t allow his own curiosity to win, not this time. He is twisting in midair, trying to look for the way out of this place and back to the Nether hub, but before he can even flap his wings and soar over to where he thinks he’s been when he first came to this fortress, something shatters the netherrack cliff closest to him. Had Grian not been looking around almost obsessively while creating an escape plan for himself, he would have missed it, but as it stands, Grian sees a </span>
  <em>
    <span>skull </span>
  </em>
  <span>enveloped by magic flung at unimaginable speeds towards the netherrack, shattering it upon impact. The shape in the mist becomes clearer when it dissipates, revealing blackened bones and the same glowing red eyes of the withered prince, but it’s not-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian squints and flies just a little bit higher, as it doesn’t seem to be looking at him right now. The skeleton is </span>
  <em>
    <span>floating</span>
  </em>
  <span> just a few feet higher than the soul sand, its mace dropped somewhere in the lava, seeing as Grian cannot spot it, no matter how hard he looks, and magic seems to make the surface of each of its bones gleam as if enchanted. Its jaw hangs open as it twists its head to look up, the reds of his eyes almost appearing more intense for a second as it focuses on Grian, but then, before Grian can judge the prince’s subtly portrayed emotional state, the magic gathers in its hands as it raises them up and Grian doesn't even have time to notice that it flies closer to him, its speed </span>
  <em>
    <span>horrifying</span>
  </em>
  <span>, because the same skulls as the one that had exploded into the netherrack form into the spread, skeletal palms of its hands, gleaming like a </span>
  <em>
    <span>warning</span>
  </em>
  <span> due to the magic film enveloping them, before being launched towards Grian without any movement from the prince. Grian lets out a cut-off scream and scrambles where he is keeping himself afloat, hoping that the skulls will just break more of the red stone behind him, but one look over his shoulder as he flies closer and closer to the ceiling reveals the fact that, not only is the prince on his trail, its speed almost on the same level as Grian’s, which makes the panic in his chest at not having the open air as a viable escape route stab itself between his lungs, into his very heart, but he can also see the fact that the skulls </span>
  <em>
    <span>can</span>
  </em>
  <span> change trajectory, despite taking a bit of time to do so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian’s eyes widen, but the terrified scream that is trying to leave his lips gets caught in the breath that stutters out of him and he keeps flying away, his wing shoulder almost hurting with how hard he is flapping his wings. The ceiling is getting uncomfortably close and Grian has never been good at suddenly changing angles, but when a glowing skull passes right </span>
  <em>
    <span>above</span>
  </em>
  <span> his head, he knows he has no choice. Grian puts even more strength into the movements of his wings and flinches at the netherrack ceiling overhead, hoping against all hope that some of False’s flying lessons have rubbed off on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They feel like flaming arrows as they whizz past Grian’s sided, but he keeps flying, keeps cutting away at the distance between himself and the fast approaching ceiling, closing his eyes when he is left with just a few more feet between them, tensing up when he almost </span>
  <em>
    <span>feels</span>
  </em>
  <span> the weight of the potential impact and, at the last second, with an uncontrollable gasp, Grian gives his wings full control. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They open up behind him and their angle </span>
  <em>
    <span>just</span>
  </em>
  <span> about leads him to avoiding the catastrophical collision as Grian flies parallel to the netherrack, his face inches away from it and from the heat radiating off of it. He doesn’t dare turn around or move his gaze anywhere else right now, once his eyes are open and focused on the ceiling, no, but Grian </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> hear the impact the prince makes as it crashes right </span>
  <em>
    <span>into</span>
  </em>
  <span> the roof of the Nether with an inhuman, painfully loud screech that, were Grian not entirely focused on keeping his flight as stable as he can while allowing his wings the freedom to do what they already </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> how to do, he would have covered his ears, but as it stands, all he can do is flee further away. Until he hears the prince behind him again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a dizzying motion, Grian loops his whole body around and flies downwards instead, the approaching lava ocean a much more terrifying sight than the one the netherrack roof had made, but he does afford to look back at it and, with his panic turning into full-on terror, Grian realises that, although the withered prince seems to be missing an arm, it is still flying after him, the magic around it glowing a dark purple that looks almost blue, its red eyes now gone completely dark. Grian wants to keep flying away, but maybe because of the disconcerting observation that, after its crash against the ceiling, it seems to be able to move </span>
  <em>
    <span>even</span>
  </em>
  <span> faster, Grian slows down, but soars downwards at a sharp angle that keeps him just far enough from the lava that his feathers don’t catch fire spontaneously. Or maybe it is because Grian knows that he cannot evade it, not for long at least, and he cannot fight it as he is, armourless and weaponless, because he </span>
  <em>
    <span>will</span>
  </em>
  <span> die, and waking up in a bed and away from where he knows the archangel is going to confront the other hermits seems like too much of a wild card at the moment, what with all of the other portals having been manually disassembled, whilst the Shopping District one had just been put out of commission. Grian does not want to find out if he has enough knowledge about the rituals and the processes that need to be performed perfectly to open a Nether portal from scratch, because he is almost entirely sure he does not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so Grian looks forward and, after noticing the crookedness of the Nether Wilds just ahead, he almost cheers out in an overwhelming sort of relief, but he knows that now is not the time.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>By the time Grian is winding through the netherrack relief, the withered prince is nowhere to be seen, having probably crashed into at least one of the red columns of natural terrain that reach the highest parts of the nether in this biome, it so Grian hopes, what with it being filled with deep, crimson mist, and Grian can only hope that, slowly, it is taking damage, even if the thought has a bitter aftertaste forming in a distant corner of his mind, but Grian is far more concentrated on doing what he’s always done: surviving and moving on. Eventually, Grian feels safe enough to hide in a netherrack cave that barely fits him, the vines that hang downwards covering the entrance just enough that Grian has a clear, albeit limited view, of what is happening outside of it, while still remaining unseen. He sees it as it moves closer, no longer flying at the breakneck speed from before, but rather, stalking forward with its one arm enveloped by the blue magic which is swirling around another skull it holds in its palm. Grian gulps. He momentarily glues his back to the small cave’s wall and lets himself </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span> for a moment. One more nervous, almost dangerous look outside of his constrictive cave just before it passes next to Grian’s little hiding place reveals something that Grian had been too panicked to see before. There’s a ghast in this region.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian brings himself back mentally, just enough to think for a second, just enough to process a way to fight the withered prince, and the answer comes to him in the form of a memory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The memory of Impulse telling him </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly</span>
  </em>
  <span> how he’d managed to actually tame a ghast, the memory of his words ringing in Grian’s ears as he looks down at his own hands, at the sweaty, scarred surface of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“It takes a long time to get a ghast to not see you as a threat anymore, let alone for one to trust you”</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Impulse had said, calmly, with a kind smile on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“And if I don’t have that much time?”</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Grian himself had asked, and present-Grian almost wants to pat himself on the back, because Impulse’s next words are </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly</span>
  </em>
  <span> what Grian needs in his current predicament.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Well, in that case, all you can accomplish is get a ghast to not attack you.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“How?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Give them another target.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian ponders the plan once, twice, but he knows that if he stays where he is a second longer, he will never find the courage to leave his hiding place, so with the biggest inhale Grian can manage, he bolts out of the cave and, as predicted, both the ghast and the withered prince are on him. Two pairs of red eyes follow him around in rage, even if their sizes differ, and Grian makes sure their attention is </span>
  <em>
    <span>firmly</span>
  </em>
  <span> on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first time a fireball from said ghast comes too close for comfort, Grian manages to dodge it just in the nick of time, but it grazes past his right horn and Grian is unbearably thankful that he cannot feel the boney mass if it. Soon enough, Grian is caught between the two, is caught between magicked, flying skulls and burning fire charges, freshly lit and awfully painful, even when they don't hit their mark. Grian feels the place where he’d been withered once before flare up as both the ghast and the demon prince come closer, but he does not allow himself to focus on that and, instead, as soon as the two are in range of one another, Grian does what he’s seen False do a million times: disappear in thin air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It isn’t disappearance, Grian knows, she had explained it to him, it’s all about using your wings to make it looks as though you are about to take off and then, actually, launching yourself into a place where one will not be seen, but Grian knows that his own take on the technique is shaky at best, but…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It </span>
  <em>
    <span>works</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian is stood atop one of the shorter, broken-off columns of naturally formed netherrack and he can see, quite clearly, how the withered prince tries to go after Grian, but is sent flailing into the walls of netherrack all around them by a charge sent its way. The ghast looks angry and the cry it makes resonates throughout the whole Nether, it seems, because Grian flinches at its volume and bring his wings around himself like a shield. It doesn’t do much against the sound, but it still manages to make him feel a little more comfortable. The same screech as the one her heard before from the prince makes itself heard and Grian peeks through black feathers at the withered form approaching him, </span>
  <em>
    <span>no</span>
  </em>
  <span>, approaching the </span>
  <em>
    <span>ghast</span>
  </em>
  <span>, skull after skull after skull being launched its way, even if the ghats manges to counter most of them with its own ammunition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It tackles the situation differently, then, and Grian would be impressed if he weren’t so blood-curdlingly </span>
  <em>
    <span>horrified</span>
  </em>
  <span>, as it lunges at the ghast with its jaw wide open. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another explosion of pure light and </span>
  <em>
    <span>energy</span>
  </em>
  <span> sends Grian flying off of the column and he feels himself bounce against more netherrack as he goes down, his head growing increasingly and worryingly heavy with each hit as his wings seem too slow to respond, as his senses seem to override each other. The colours around him bleed into one another, the reds and the trails of dark gray smoke and embers somewhere behind Grian dividing the landscape in two as Grian keeps trying to fly away, but his sense of direction is worse than it usually is while in the air and all Grian can do is trust that his wings will have a bit more mercy on him and won’t plunge him into the orange mass of molten rock below, his skin already crawling at the memory of a death provoked by it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Grian is going lower, his angle dropping despite how he frantically moves his wings and, after a few moments of uselessly flailing around, trying desperately to avoid hitting more of the netherrack on his way down, his poor head screaming at him in pain, spots appearing in his vision, Grian ends up allowing his wings to just slowly go down into a spiraling descent. As he is right now, eyes half-closed and pain dragging at all of his nerve-endings, his own heartbeat too loud in his own ears, Grian catches sight of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He has to blink multiple times to clear the blurred mess of shapes and colours into something more detailed, but when he does, he can see the way </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> breaks free of the smoke. It’s too small to be either the prince or the ghast and, with the way the sparks seem to still be falling down like glowing ashes, as though the magic itself is trying to reform the fraying skeleton of the prince after a direct crash against a </span>
  <em>
    <span>ghast</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Grian can only assume that it is a tear of the ghast. Something sad tugs at his conscience, but Grian’s emotions are too unfocused right now, too much pain that stems from his lightheadedness affecting them, and so the last thing Grian thinks about is that, whatever that is, it is giving off a faint sort of light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian does not think anymore, after that, no, his eyes snap open and, with an almost desperate twist of his whole body, his wings glued to his shaking frame to give him more speed, he lets himself fall faster than it can, some sort of instinct telling him that, despite not knowing </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span> that is, it is </span>
  <em>
    <span>important.</span>
  </em>
  <em>
    <span><br/>
</span>
  </em>
  <span>It is like it draws Grian in and, were it not for his own  wings doing a surprisingly good job at taking a sharp turn at the last moment, Grian’s palm outstretched, his fingers reaching for the falling object, he almost loses it to the lava.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then Grian wraps his hand around it and his vision fades completely as, the moment the tips of his fingers make contact with it, a bolt of what feels like fire shoot up his arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian </span>
  <em>
    <span>screams</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can only feel the agony for a second, because after a single moment of the all encompassing pain drowning out all other senses, Grian goes numb with it. He is still flying, he thinks, or falling, most likely, but he has the </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> clutched securely between shaking fingers, his hands drawn up to his chest and his wings curled around himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then it stops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian opens his eyes and exhales, slowly, his body unfurling from its curled up position and his brain still stuttering with the remnants of both emotions and sensations. Grian looks around himself. The lava below him doesn’t approach him  at worrying speeds, the Nether’s walls dont shift around him with the dizziness he’d been experiencing earlier, and his body feels almost distant. Looking down at his hands reveals the item that Grian had caught, a small, four conrnered, white star with a blue-purple center that seems almost washed out by the light it is emitting. Where his fingers are touching it, Grian’s skin buzzes, but Grian is almost mesmerised by it, so much so that he nearly misses the fact that his whole arm is covered in symbols.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian lets out a soft gasp and feels his wings give a s trong flap that sends him gently upwards, the movement smoother than Grian has ever managed before. Demon speech glows violet on his arm and, as Grian traces the fingers of his free, equally marked up hand over it, he can feel the warmth it radiates. His gaze slips back to the star in his hands and, all of a sudden, Grian can </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> the power that surges from it, can only breathe sharply as it fills his bloodstream, as it makes his lungs burn with it, and, for a second, for the first time in his whole existence so wracked with pain and misery, Grian doesn’t feel weak. No, that’s not true, either. He remembers some of the best moments of his life, which he’d spent with the hermits. Grian hasn’t felt weak in a long time but, for some reason, the star seems to enable something in him, seems to hold something within it glazed surface that is more powerful and more ancient than anything Grian knows. It is magic in a form Grian has never seen before and Grian feels </span>
  <em>
    <span>strong</span>
  </em>
  <span> with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grian brings both hands around the star again and, without another moment’s hesitation, he takes off into the direction that he’d come from.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks he has what it takes to </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> something, for once, and Grian won’t squander this opportunity.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>---</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Xisuma grunst as he pushes the barrier harder against the purple particles that, where he to let them through, would burn before bringing with it the whole blunt strength of the void’s magic. Behind him, he senses movement, the faint shouts and clanks of weaponry, the distant cry of a ghast all too clear to him, but even as he is, focused on too many fronts, the powers that he has as a leader stretched thin against the force that is an </span>
  <em>
    <span>archangel</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he still hears it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It sounds like glass hitting glass, but louder, the pitch of it ringing throughout the Shopping District and, for just a second, drowning out the sound of battle all around them. </span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>With a stuttered breath, Xisuma realises that it is the sound of a Nether portal being lit and opened form the other side, but something feels </span>
  <em>
    <span>different.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Something akin to relief washes over Xisuma as he spots the faint, almost purple glow of magic that becomes stronger as something, no, and Xisuma wants to smile as he realises what is going on, but he is too strained to do so, </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone</span>
  </em>
  <span> approaches them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wouldn’t have thought it real, that he’d actually see the day a demon would fight against an archangel with the heart of the Nether in their hands, its star at their disposal, but this is not the first time Grian had proven a legend true, and Xisuma allows himself to relax slightly as he sees confusion stretch across the archangel’s features, their magic stuttering in their grasp.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is in no way canon in Twol, but ever since that ask about magic in the Twol universe, I've been having thoughts...<br/>Fic is not very good, but hey, it sure exists :P</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>